


Whatever Comes Our Way

by NellieOleson



Category: Stargate SG-1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 18:02:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellieOleson/pseuds/NellieOleson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like potato chips, only different. Prompt: Jack's motorcycle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever Comes Our Way

  
“Carter?” Jack shoved his head into his garage, squinting at the harsh lights. Carter had been gone too long and her track record for not getting kidnapped wasn’t all that impressive. He half expected to be greeted by a smoldering hole in the wall and a few unconscious bad guys. Carter would put up a good fight.  
  
His eyes adjusted and he was relieved to see Carter hadn’t been kidnapped. She was simply nosing around in his garage. It wasn’t something she would have been doing six years ago and Jack couldn’t be sure if she’d picked up the habit from himself or from Daniel.  
  
“I didn’t know you had a motorcycle,” she said.  
  
“Great, I’ll put that on the list.”  
  
She looked over at him, instantly suspicious of his list making. “What list?”  
  
“I’m making a list of things you don’t know.” Jack walked to the corner for the case of beer Carter had come for ten minutes ago and pulled out a bottle. “You’re holding up the game.” As far as Jack could tell, Pictionary was only fun with lots of beer. “Teal’c is getting restless.” He opened his bottle and silently thanked whoever had invented twist-off caps.  
 _  
Nice._ It was already cold. Like his feet. Cold concrete and socks didn’t mix well. He shifted back and forth while Carter took a leisurely stroll around his motorcycle. She’d been smart enough to put on shoes.  
  
“56?” She asked, peeling back the tarp to get a better look and completely ignoring everything he’d said.  
  
“55,” said Jack.  
  
“Panhead, right?”  
  
“Yeah.” Jack rubbed the bottom of his foot against his leg. “My dad brought it home when I was fifteen. We worked on it every summer until I joined the Air Force.” And by ‘worked on it’, he meant that they had sat around staring at the bike waiting for those shoe-making elves to show up and do the actual work. But what the project lacked in tangible results, it had made up for as a bonding experience. Some of his best memories of his father involved their dismal success at motorcycle restoration. “As you can see, we didn’t get very far.”  
  
Looking back, it might have been in better shape before they started.  
  
“It’s nice,” she said. “For a Harley.” She was smiling and Jack forgot to pretend to be insulted. And it was a nice bike. Most people wouldn’t have given it a second look in its current condition but Carter always did have an eye for hidden potential.  
  
She slid a finger down the curve of the gas tank leaving a trail in the dust and Jack’s toes warmed up a bit. “You should restore it,” she said.  
  
“Sure, Carter. With all my free time I should have it done just after I’m dead.” She didn’t look amused--sometimes the truth wasn’t all that funny. More often than not, it was depressing as hell. And when it wasn’t depressing, it was usually painful.  
  
She pulled the tarp back over the handlebars. Jack figured he wouldn’t be seeing it again any time soon but he was wrong. Carter took a step back and hesitated. “I could help you,” she said.  
  
The air in the garage felt thicker, full of all the things floating between the lines. Jack couldn’t be sure if she’d offered out of guilt or a momentary lapse in sanity.  He’d take either. “Okay.”  
  
Carter looked conflicted, like maybe she’d expected Jack to turn her down. But that wasn’t his role and she should have known better. She bit her lip and frowned at whatever internal dialogue she was having with herself. “I could come by this weekend.”  
  
 _Shit._ He actually had plans this weekend. “Great. I’ll be here.”  
  
She stared at the bike and Jack thought she was trying to think of a way to back out. Apparently she was just thinking of a way to make a bad idea worse. “Maybe you should bring it to my place. My garage is--” She looked around, unimpressed. “Better equipped.”  
  
“I have tools. Sort of.” There might have been a wrench under his old skates. He sighed.  “Your place it is.”  
  
Sometimes he wasn’t sure why he bothered to put up a fight.  
  
  
**********  
  
  
The sun was still rubbing the sleep out of its eyes when Jack rolled his bike into Carter’s garage.  A rush of warm air drifted out to chase off the morning chill and the heat washed over his face. Carter shut the door behind him and he looked around while his body shook off the cold. It was the first time Jack had seen Carter’s Bat Cave and he could tell she spent a lot of her free time there. It had the same chaotically organized atmosphere of her lab.  
  
Carter had more tools than Jack’s bike had parts, better equipped was clearly an understatement. No wonder he and his father hadn’t made any progress, thought Jack, they’d been limited to an old set of Craftsman hand tools and a MIG welder neither of them knew how to use. They’d obviously been doomed from the start.  
  
A rolling tool cabinet loomed out of the far corner. Grimy engine parts mingled freely with bright chrome trim on all available flat surfaces—Jack was pretty sure there was another complete motorcycle hiding in plain sight. Carter’s own bike was pushed to one side and covered. The Volvo had been on the street when he arrived. Logistically it made sense to move the larger vehicle out but Jack thought there was also a little favoritism involved in her decision. Carter treated that bike like family.  
  
He glanced over at her and she was looking at him. Waiting for something.  
  
“I like it,” said Jack.  
  
She grinned and it went straight to his groin. “Thanks.”  
  
“Yeah.” Jack was still holding the bike up. Its kickstand had fallen off somewhere between his truck and Carter’s garage. “What do you want me to do with this?”  
  
“Let’s get it up on some stands and see what we’ve got.”  
  
“It’s a motorcycle, Carter.”  
  
“Thank you, sir.” She set the stands down. “You’re very helpful.”  
  
“I do what I can.”  
  
**********  
  
The morning rolled by in a comfortable working rhythm interrupted by coffee refills and tool fetching. Carter kept up a running commentary for Jack’s benefit. He tried to care but mostly he was just fascinated with watching her work. And he really liked the little rolling mechanic’s chair she gave him. It was fun and it beat the hell out of sitting on the floor. She gave him a sharp look whenever she caught him rolling around without reason but she never said anything.  
  
Carter sat on the floor like a little kid working on a bicycle. “It’s not in bad shape,” she declared after stripping the bike of everything but its dignity. Jack almost felt sorry for it. She waved an oily finger at the engine. “We should crack that open. See if it’s worth rebuilding.”  
  
“If it’s not, we can probably build one out of the spare parts you have floating around here.”  
  
She looked at her stash of parts as though it had never occurred to her that she might have just a few too many. “Those are Indian parts. They’d be insulted if I put them on your bike,” said Carter. She nudged Jack’s knee with her shoulder and he fell just a little more in love with her. It occurred to him that moments like these were exactly the reason he shouldn’t have taken her up on her offer. He resented the thought. They were too old to let hormones ruin their friendship.  
  
His stomach growled, putting an end to their conversation.  
  
She laughed at him and looked at her watch. “I guess we should stop for the day.”  
  
Jack knew she didn’t want to stop—he and his stomach were holding her back. She’d probably have the whole thing done by the end of the weekend if he wasn’t there to slow her down. “Yeah. I think I’m going to call it a day. I don’t want to suck up your whole weekend.” Weekends away from the mountain were a luxury and it was possible she had more important things to do.  
  
“Are you sure?” She stood up and stretched. Jack stared at his shoes. “I have food.”  
  
As much as he didn’t want to leave, he was sure he shouldn’t be hanging around Carter’s house making sandwiches. It was too much normal for one day. “I’m sure, Carter.”  
  
“See you tomorrow?”  
  
She would. She shouldn’t, but she would because Jack had never been very good at saying no to her.  
  
  
**********  
  
  
One frozen pizza, six hours of restless sleep and a box of warm donuts later, Jack pulled into Carter’s sub-division. She didn’t answer her door so Jack headed for the garage. She’d probably slept out there.  
  
The air was crisp and the sun seemed to have taken the day off. Jack thought about asking Carter to make sure the next planet on the list had three suns. He walked into the garage and found Carter measuring the empty cylinders on his engine block. “How long have you been out here?” He asked. His engine was completely torn down and spread across a clean piece of canvas. She must have worked on it for hours.  
  
“Not long,” she lied. Her cheeks flushed and she wiped a strand of hair from her face with the back of her hand. “Donuts?”  
  
“Right.” Jack offered her the box. “They’re still warm.”  
  
She snapped off the nitrile gloves she’d been wearing and took the donuts. “I’m starving.”  
  
“You’re just a little bit obsessive, Carter.”  
  
There was no denying that and she just shrugged. Carter raided the donut box with far too much enthusiasm. Jack wondered how many meals she missed after bringing some new shiny piece of alien technology back to the mountain.  
  
The donuts didn't last long and Carter wasn't in the mood for small talk. The motorcycle must have been calling to her on some wavelength he couldn't hear and she went back to it before Jack had finished his first donut. He winced when she lost her grip on a box wrench and smacked her hand into the frame. Jack had been pretty sure if one of them was going to get hurt, it would be him, but Carter was some sort of motorcycle restoring control freak and she hadn’t let him touch anything.  
  
“Ow.” Carter stuck her knuckle in her mouth and Jack tried not to stare. “That hurt.” She squeezed the words past her finger.  
  
It looked like it hurt but there was really nothing Jack could do for her. He was reasonably sure she wasn’t going to let him suck on her finger. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask though… “Anything I can do?”  
  
Jack was just a little sad when her lips released her injured finger. “Yeah, can you get me the impact wrench?” She shook her hand a little and wiped it on her coveralls. “It’s on the bench.”  
  
“Sure.” Jack rolled toward the bench until he ran out of clean floor space. He was so getting one of those rolling chairs. Finding the wrench wasn’t going to be easy. He picked through parts and tools that were not impact wrenches until a small propane torch sidetracked his search.  
  
A blowtorch. Carter was so fucking cool. He picked it up. Surely there would be some need for it. Fire was very useful.  
  
Jack almost dropped the torch when Carter snuck up behind him.  
  
“What are you doing?” She asked over his shoulder.  
  
He turned around and told her more than he should have. “Just thinking about how cool you were.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“You have a blowtorch, Carter.”  
  
She grabbed the impact wrench like it wasn’t hidden in the midst of a thousand other things. “You’re pretty easy to impress, sir.”  
  
It was a joke. Jack knew that. But he wanted to make sure she was clear on some things. Some _thing_ , really. “No, Carter. I’m not.”   
  
Maybe he was being a little too honest because she turned away and left Jack staring at her back. He thought if he squinted and held his head just so he might actually see the tension coming off of her in little waves. He put the torch down and stepped up behind her. “I’m sorry,” he said. And he was. Somehow they’d been managing to have a good time in spite of themselves.  
  
Now they weren’t.  
  
She turned back around and she was just so damn close. Too close. Jack’s brain started lying to him, telling him he _could_ eat just one chip. It didn’t have to be all or nothing. Maybe there was a middle ground right here in Carter’s garage. Maybe he should just kiss her now while he had the chance.  
  
Jack was sure his intentions were written in bold letters on brightly colored poster board and stapled to his forehead. But Carter didn’t run away screaming and that was all the encouragement he needed. He leaned toward her and her eyes flinched. Maybe she would have backed away if her ass weren’t pressed against the bench.  
  
Maybe.  
  
He kissed her slowly, not wanting to miss any part of the experience. For a moment, she was completely still and Jack’s new potato chip theory was looking pretty good. Then she made a low sound and wrapped her hands around his neck. Jack started grabbing chips by the handful. Her lips parted and her fingers moved through his hair. Jack kept his hands firmly on anything that wasn’t Carter. If he touched her now, the entire bag was likely doomed.  
  
Not touching her worked well until he moved down her neck and she arched her back just enough to draw his attention to her breasts. It was unfair really. He slid his hands down her waist to her hips then picked her up and set her on the bench. Jack paused, trying to give her a chance to take her chips and run but she wasn’t interested. She drew him closer with her legs at the back of his thighs and Jack groaned as he pressed against her.  
  
Snow was beginning to fall outside the window and Carter smelled like donuts and engine oil. It wasn’t a combination he would have picked but it was one he would never forget. Jack was undoing the last button on Carter’s coveralls and eyeing the salt at the bottom of the bag when she stopped. Stopped kissing him. Stopped running her thumb around his ear. Stopped digging her heels into his legs. Just stopped.  
  
He took his hands off that last button and dropped his forehead to hers. He’d gone too far and she’d been all too willing to let him. It was a bit of knowledge he could have done without.  
  
Carter still had her arms around his neck. “I knew this was a bad idea,” she said.  
  
“Thanks, Carter.”  
  
She laughed but not because there was anything funny about the situation. “Why do we do this to ourselves?”  
  
“Because it beats the alternative?” He leaned back and tucked her hair behind her ear. She took his hand before he could get it away from her.  
  
“Which alternative?” She asked. “The one where we’re—  
  
“Ah. Please don’t finish that sentence.” He backed up so she could get off the bench. “Come on, let’s go get some lunch.”  
  
She gave him back his hand. Reluctantly. “It’s 9:30,” she said in her best I-wasn’t-just-making-out-with-my-commanding-officer voice. Jack was impressed, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep their indiscretion out of his own voice for weeks. Luckily, most people were happy when he kept his mouth shut.

“I know,” said Jack. And if they were still here at 9:32, he’d have her back on that bench.

Carter got that. Because she was smart. “Right,” she said as she walked to the door. “You buying?”

“Absolutely, Carter.” Jack followed her into the steadily increasing snow and put the bag of chips back into the closet.


End file.
